The Jumper
by Taraman
Summary: Real World - AU: What would have happened if the characters of RWBY grew up in a world with no Grimm? And what happens when a Remnantian huntress, name of Yang Xiao Long, suddenly finds herself in the middle of it? Mildly OOC Blake. You have been warned.


So picture this.

It was one of those late November evenings where it's really bloody cold outside, frost starting to form on the grass. One of those evenings where I am at my happiest: curled up onto my bed with a book and some tea. Weiss wouldn't let me turn the thermostat above 23 though, even though it's _my_ apartment. The Queen of the Snow sat at my desk studying or something, with plans to stay for tonight. Really couldn't have picked a nicer evening to have a girl materialize out of thin air onto the floor of my room.

She was accompanied by a screeching sound, like metal being torn apart. It's a good thing I wasn't holding my mug at that particular instant. Weiss pretty much jumped out of her skin, but was so shocked she didn't make a noise. Fortunately, this gave me an opportunity to study our new arrival.

The girl was on her elbows and knees, coughing her lungs out onto my floor. Her clothes were a blackened, mangled mess sitting on contrastingly flawless bronze skin, and appeared to be smoking. She had long, blond hair that must be waist length even for a girl as tall as she. At least, it would be blond, if it wasn't filled with ash. She was super fit, in an American way as well as a British one.

"Wrong number?" I said drily.

Weiss finally found her voice, albeit in a higher register than probably necessary. "What are you doing in here?!"

The girl didn't even seem to register Weiss. Her head slowly rose, as if in a dream, her eyes drawing up my body, slowly coming to rest on my own. I felt like I'd been dipped in purple paint, but even as I watched, this striking, ruby red suffused her irises. Perhaps I should have been off-put by this, but witnessing someone literally appear out of nowhere lends to a certain temporary suspension of disbelief.

"Blake?" Her voice was tentative, soft, and cracked. Maybe I need to lower my expectations of someone who just coughed a pile of ash out of their lungs.

She slowly got to her feet. Weiss was looking at her with an expression of acute disgust. Weiss hates people who are taller than her. Unfortunately, most people fall into this category. She also hates people she considers 'slobs'. It is the particular combination of being over six feet tall and dumping piles of ash onto the floor that was so unfortunate for the mystery girl at that moment.

Her breaths were shallow, fast. She seemed not to even dare approach me for a second, before saying in the same quiet, reserved voice, "Your eyes are green."

She let out a small giggle, and then another one, and then she was laughing hysterically, her shoulders shuddering with sobs as she almost lifted me off the floor with the force of her hug. Her skin on mine was that sort of temperature just below burning where it feels like your skin is melting, but in a curiously not unpleasant way.

"Blake..." Halfway between laughing and crying, or perhaps just both at once, her voice held far more emotion that I think I was prepared to deal with that night. I awkwardly just let myself be hugged.

Weiss was on her feet now. "Who are you and how do you know _my girlfriend_?"

The girl let go of me at this and half-turned to her. "Weiss? What do you mean?"

Weiss sputtered at the mention of her name, and her voice rose an octave again. "Who are you?!"

"You..." The girl turned back to me, eyes wide and violet. She saw my expression, which was probably a mix of surprise and confusion, with maybe a bit of intrigue. "Blake?"

"I'm ... sorry," I said slowly. "I don't think I've seen you before."

I immediately regretted this. A little while ago, there was an internet trend of putting random objects into hydraulic presses. I'm not quite sure why it was so popular, but it definitely gave me some context as to how hard I just crushed this girl's soul. Her eyes were wide, stunned, and painful. She slowly backed away from me, hands covering her mouth and nose. She took a deep breath and blinked slowly.

"I honestly thought that entering the afterlife would be somehow easier than this," she mumbled.

"Afterlife?" I raised one eyebrow. It's a talent of mine; something to do with the upward slant of my eyes makes it particularly effective.

"That is what this is, isn't it?"

"No!" Weiss said harshly. "Why do you think it is?"

"Forgive me for assuming, when I randomly meet up with my _deceased_ teammates after taking a swim in a volcano," the girl said shortly.

"I'm pretty confident I'm not dead," I pointed out.

"We," Weiss said coldly, "Have never been on a team, and never will. Tell us who you are and why you're here or I'm calling the police for intrusion!"

The girl muttered something about 'semester one Weiss' under her breath. I was barely able to pick it out with my, ahem, enhanced auditory capabilities. She seemed to calm herself before speaking audibly.

"My name is Yang Xiao Long. I'm a huntress. I trained at Beacon Academy until its fall with my teammates Blake Belladonna, Weiss Schnee, and Ruby Rose." She looked at each of us in turn. "I assume the Great War isn't happening right now, correct?"

"None to speak of," I affirmed.

She seemed to relax a bit. "I don't know how, but I seem to have came from a different world. Called Remnant."

"Yeah, we call this thing 'Earth'," I said.

She nodded. "Big baddy, name of Cinder. Well, she was an underling of Salem, but Salem is like the lord of the Grimm or something. I still haven't really had that one properly explained to me. Anyways, Cinder was her main lieutenant during the war. She got some mental superpowers, but Ruby kinda nuked her right at the start of the war. She came back with a vengeance though. Went for our team. I was the last one left, and last thing I knew, I dragged her into a volcano. Then I came here."

"Lord of the Grimm?" Weiss said. "The hell does that mean? What's grim?"

"You..." Yang rubbed her eyes. "You don't have the monsters in this world. Well that explains a lot. You two don't have auras either."

"Auras?" I said curiously.

"Some kind of hocus-pocus," Weiss explained to me. "Some people who practice pseudo-science believe people have auras that can give information about themselves."

"Auras are not hocus-pocus. See?" Yang extended her hand, palm up. A tongue of flame flickered above it, quickly evaporating into the air.

Weiss jumped back, eyes wide. Honestly, I never knew she was so easy to startle. All it took was a scantily-clad amazon with apparent superpowers. Too bad I'm only 5'10, and my only superpower is sarcasm.

"Okay," I declared. "I think I've got this. Yang here, comes from some kind of alternate reality where people with superpowers fight monsters. And people who side with the monsters. When she, well, almost died, some of the magic in her world teleported her to ours instead. So she appears in my apartment here at Beacon University. Did I get it right?"

"Where's Ruby?" Yang asked, ignoring my question. "Do you know her?"

"Never heard of her," Weiss said.

"Oh," Yang said, eyes downturned. "She's my sister. Well, was. I ... hope she still is. You know, this has been quite the rollercoaster of a day for me."

Throughout the whole exchange, she was confident, strong. Despite her emotions, it was this air that made me believe what she had to say, fantastic as it was. Weiss seemed less convinced, but it is Weiss after all. But then, Yang's eyes staring into mine, her vulnerability showed. She wasn't even upset like before, just tired. Like someone who'd been running or fighting for a very long time. Well, let Madam Belladonna's hospitality not be questioned.

"Right," said I. "The bathroom's through that door on the left. Freshen yourself up, I'll get a change of clothes for you. Just beware, the hot water doesn't last too long. I assume this Cinder lady didn't exactly serve hotdogs at your cook-out, so I'll get you some of the pasta Weiss and I had for dinner in the meantime." Wordless thanks laid in her eyes, before she turned and disappeared into my bathroom.

God dammit, my tea was cold now.

"You just … let her? Do that?" Weiss gaped at me.

Let it be equally and oppositely said about Madam Schnee's hospitality. Her upbringing has not been kind to her demeanor. To be fair, it's not like I would generally be so nice to someone who I found chilling in my room, but I consider supernatural dimension-jumping rubbish to be a slightly extenuating circumstance.

"Where else is she going to go?" I asked her in counterargument.

"You don't have to care about someone who just waltzes in!"

"If that's how she waltzes, she's earned her dinner," I decided.

"I can't believe you're taking her side!" Weiss said. "We need to report this. There's something crazy going on!"

"There's no sides here. Just a girl who needs help, and not from authorities. We should know more before we get anyone else involved."

"You believe her."

"Why wouldn't I? Somehow, she knows both of us, and you've seen what she can do. Look, Weiss. Humor me in this. I'll take you out to dinner this weekend."

"Ugh!" Weiss dropped herself down on my spinny chair and furiously threw herself back into her work. Well, love never did run smooth. Someday I'll get over my guilt. Maybe. It took but a minute to sweep all the ash off the floor.

It really was a lovely evening.

* * *

"You seem to enjoy my cooking at least," I grinned at her. "You seem like you've been on the move a lot."

Yang considered. "Two years. That's how long it's been. It's funny, honestly. Beacon Academy got destroyed during our second semester. I was out there, fighting, being a huntress, for about three times as long as I was even there."

"What exactly is a huntress? The monster-fighters?"

"Yeah basically. Beacon was a combat school. You get your aura unlocked, you learn to fight, and if you're strong enough, you get in. Hunters and huntresses devote their lives to killing Grimm. Grimm were a huge part of Remnant. I don't know how you guys do over here, but human settlements covered only something like 4% of Remnant, the rest was uninhabitable because of the Grimm."

"Sounds awful."

"We made do. It's just life. Everything's relative."

Silence. But not a bad one. Think of a sundae made of comfortable noiselessness with a maraschino awkwardness cherry on the top. It's present, brightly colored, the first thing that you see. But in the end it's really just a garnish.

Weiss was never one for ice cream. "I've arranged for you to stay in the room next door for tonight at least."

Yang's smile was warm, genuine, and violet. "Thanks, Weiss." She stood up and yawned. "A real bed. I am looking forward to this. Want to just show me now?"

I untangled my fingers from my hair - a complicated affair - and moved to stand up but Weiss was already there. Yang looked down at me.

"Night, Blake." She looked completely out of it, a slightly silly half-smile on her face. "We'll talk more in the morning."

"Night, Yang," I said.

Weiss and her walked out the room. I pulled apart two of the ribbons that make up my bow so I can hear better.

"Tomorrow's Saturday, so don't expect us to be up too early. You can join us for breakfast."

"Thank you."

Weiss' voice got a frosty edge to it, and I found myself straining to hear. "Blake seems to trust you, even after all that. I don't have any reason right now to trust your story. But believe me when I say that it's in your best interests to not give me any reason to suspect you might hurt her."

Weiss might be small, but her family is big. Not in number, but in grandeur. Her father owns a rather large diamond mining company, but I prefer not to think about that particularity.

"I know."

"And I don't know what sort of relationship you had with someone who looks like her, but she's my girlfriend, so hands off. Got it?"

I feel honored, actually.

Silence falls for about two seconds. Then Yang said, quietly: "This isn't my world. I'm not interested in messing around with it. I just want to find the people I've lost."

Too bad. I really could have used some 'messing around', that night.

"Good," Weiss said. "Talk in the morning."

"Goodnight," Yang said, and then the door closed.

Weiss didn't say anything when she walked in, just went back to studying. I poured more tea and found my place in my book again.

When she decided she wanted to go to bed, I soon found a pair of cool hands sliding under my shirt. I gently pushed her away.

"I'm not really in the mood tonight," I lied. To reassure her, I slid my arms around her and pulled her close. But my dreams had violet eyes.

* * *

 **A/N, 27 Jan 2017: Hey guys, just wanted to give a quick update here since this story got a lot more attention that I was expecting (in fact, people are still reading it today). A lot of you are wanting updates, more content for this. Perhaps it's my fault for not specifying anywhere, but I really only intended this to be a one-shot, a fluffy bee story to give me a chance to try writing in a totally different way. While I do have some ideas about where I _could_ go with this, the absolute last thing I want is to post something you guys will be disappointed with - a chapter that is just tagged on because the first was decent. I love the idea behind this, but I'm not going to write anything more for this story until I _know_ I have something good to go forward with. Although, the OOC Blake is just so much fun to write...**

 **Thank you all for reading.  
~Taraman**


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